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Stravinsky Estate Fight Resolved

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An eight‐year‐long battle over Igor Stravinsky's estate between his 92year‐old widow and his children by his first wife has been settled with the filing of court papers signed in Manhattan. Paris and Switzerland.

The value of the composer's estate is unofficially estimated at $3.5 million. In addition to royalties collectable worldwide, his property included his original, handwritten scores of many of his masterpieces, including “The Rite of Spring,” the innovative work that signaled a turning point in music history when it was presented in 1913.

The settlement, a stipulation approved yesterday by Surrogate Millard L. Midonick in Manhattan, releases foreign royalties totaling $400,000 that had been impounded in Paris. It also lifts an order restraining negotiations for the purchase of Stravinsky manuscripts worth $1.5 million by a consortium of California universities.

The settlement acknowledged certain community‐property rights for Mrs. Stravinsky but also gave other heirs some control for the first time in the administration of the estate.

The stipulation ends eight years litigation that occurred despite Stravinsky's attempt to avert conflict between his widow, Vera, to whom he left everything for her lifetime, and his children, whom he knew to be hostile to her. The children's mother, Catherine, died in Paris in 1939.

Stravinsky died in his Fifth Avenue apartment in 1971 at the age of 88. His will, signed in Manhattan a year and four months earlier, revoked “absolutely” the legacy of any heir who “directly or indirectly” contested it or disputed its validity.

Although one son contested the will in France, the other children did not directly contest it or dispute its validity in the United States. Instead, they demanded an accounting of the estate in Surrogate Court in Manhattan, then challenged the accounting and accused their stepmother of misappropriating estate assets. They asserted a right to do so because the will provided that eight‐ninths of anything left after Mrs. Stravinsky's death was to go to them.

Stravinsky's 69‐year‐old son, Soulima, who is also a concert pianist and composer, sued in Paris for royalties owed his father there on the ground that he was a naturalized French citizen and entitled under French law to inherit from his father regardless of the American will. The suit tied up $400,000 in royalties, although Soulima had become a naturalized citizen of the United States in Danville, Ill., on Jan. 7, 1955, while he was teaching piano at the University of Illinois in Urbana. He now lives in Florida.

The other Stravinsky children who sued with Soulima in Surrogate Court in Manhattan are 72‐year‐old Theodore, a painter who lives in Geneva, and Milene Marion, who lives in Los Angeles. Stravinsky's granddaughter, Catherine Jellatchitch, known as Kitty, of Geneva, the daughter of Stravinsky's deceased daughter, Ludmilla, also joined them in their suit.

The children also tried to block publication by Simon & Schuster Inc. of “Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents,” a book by Mrs. Stravinsky and Robert Craft that came out early this year. Mr. Craft was a protégé who worked closely with Mr. Stravinsky on the recording of his music. He also collaborated with the composer on six books and wrote his own, “Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship,” published by Alfred A. Knopf Inc. in 1972, about his 23 years with the composer.

Stravinsky's musical career flowered sensationally in his native Russia, flourished in Paris after the Russian Revolution and coptinued in California. The composer had lived in the United States since 1939 and had been a citizen since Dec. 28, 1945. He and his second wife lived in New York City for a year and a half before his death, and she still resides in their 14‐room apartment.

Vera de Bossett Stravinsky was also born in Russia, where she acted and studied ballet in St. Petersburg. She left after the revolution with her husband, Serge Sudeikin, a painter. During the 1920's she designed costumes in Paris for Sergei Diaghilev, the ballet impresario, who introduced her to Stravinsky in an Italian restaurant in Montmartre in 1921.

She and the composer married on March 9, 1940, in Cambridge, Mass., while he was lecturing at Harvard. “We had a love affair from ‘22 on,” she told an interviewer in 1971, “so it was almost an anniversary since the golden day of our acquaintance.”

Stravinsky's will left all of his assets in trust and directed that the “entire net income” be paid to Vera. It named her as co‐executor with L. Arnold Weissberger, a New York City lawyer with an extensive theatrical clientele. It also named Mr. Weissberger trustee with power to “invade the principal” of the trust “for any reason whatsoever, even though the principal of the trust may thereby become exhausted” to make payments “to or on behalf” of Vera.

After her death, the remainder of the estate was to be divided into nine equal shares, two to go to each of Stravinsky's three children and granddaughter, and one share to Mr. Craft.

The estate consists largely of Stravinsky manuscripts and musical scores and royalties collectable worldwide from publication, performance and recordings of the prolific composer's operas, ballets, symphonies and concert music. It also includes recordings of music Stravinsky directed or played on the piano. Royalties from the estate have averaged half a million dollars annually since his death.

The most valuable manuscript in the Stravinsky archives was his handwritten score for “Le Sacre du Printemps,” or “The Rite of Spring.” Its sale for $220,000 by Mrs. Stravinsky in December 1973 was one of the principal bones of contention between her and her stepchildren. They maintained that the manuscript belonged to the estate; she insisted that it was hers, a gift from her husband while he was alive.

Her stepchildren also accused her of selling and keeping the proceeds of other manuscripts and valuable paintings belonging to the estate and spending estate assets on personal expenses such as her apartment rent and a $400a‐week salary for Mr. Craft.

Mrs. Stravinsky responded with a denial of the accusations and an accounting listing, among other estate assets, “personal property” worth $250. She also asserted that 40 percent of Stravinsky's holdings belonged to her, not the estate, by reason of the community‐property laws of California, where they lived from 1940 to 1969 and where, she contended, Stravinsky. created most of his royalty‐producing works.

The children responded with the assertion that a true list of “personal property” left by their father should include hundreds of thousands of dollars in artworks and memorabilia from his long, exciting life.

The artworks in the apartment, Mrs. Stravinsky replied, belonged to her, not the estate, including a large number she herself had painted, as well as paintings she had acquired while she operated an art gallery in California.

The stipulation, signed by all parties to the dispute, upheld Mrs. Stravinsky's community‐property rights to 38.93 percent of all royalties from Stravinsky's works except those arising in France and certain other countries, which are to be paid to the children, and certain others arising from post‐mortem renewals. She also retains community‐property interest of 20 percent after her death, which she may bequeath. All parties agreed to withdraw all objections to any aspect of previous administration of the estate.

On the other hand, the children and grandchild were given a voice in the administration of the trust for the first time, and it was placed under Surrogate Court jurisdiction.

Two new trustees, both lawyers, were aesignatea to administer the trust with Mr. Weissberger. One represents the children, the other represents Mrs. Stravinsky. Their consent — but not that of Mr. Weissberger — is now required for any action connected with the estate. If they cannot agree, the dispute must be taken to Surrogate Court for resolution.

All parties to the agreement will now have access to, and the right to publish, materials contained in the Stravinsky archives and manuscripts, which are to be held by the trust.